Explaining UFO sightings

On an otherwise unremarkable January night in Stephenville, Texas, dozens of people looked to the sky and saw a vast vessel with a combination of red, white and yellow lights flying fast over the area's farms. One observer said the vessel was a mile long. Several said they saw fighter jets chasing it. One said he feared the object's appearance might mean "the end of times."

A pilot, a cop and some businessmen, housewives, and children all say they saw a UFO on Jan. 8. The spaceship moved over the area for several seconds, witnesses said, and then zoomed away 300 times faster than a Cessna jet can travel.

UFO sightings make the news several times a year. In 2007 eight such episodes attracted headlines. Most sightings take place in the South and West.

UFO spotters endure endless jokes about their experiences. But even people who debunk the very notion of UFOs take them seriously. "No one should make fun" of Stephenville's UFO spotters, says Theodore Schick of Muhlenberg College, a liberal arts school in Allentown, Pa. They "had a real experience that's out of the ordinary." But Schick and experts in physics and human psychology say the experiences have scientific explanations. Scientists now probe the most microscopic aspects of the brain and the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

Evolution provides a good starting place for explaining why people have paranormal experiences.

For all but the last 10,000 years of human history, man survived by hunting and gathering plants. To interpret a mysterious world, man projected his own fears and understandings onto his environment. In the "enchanted" view of the world, every part of nature—rocks, trees, hills, water—was alive and filled with spirit. Even in the age of science, the human brain still projects ideas and images on the world. Next Page »